From software to toilet paper: filmmaker to live open source for a year

Wants to find out just how far the "open source idea can go in real life."

A filmmaker is planning to spend a year living an open source life—with everything from his clothes to his toilet paper strictly adhering to the philosophy.

Sam Muirhead, a New Zealander living in Berlin, will begin his challenge on August 1, 2012 and is raising money on crowdfunding site IndieGoGo to support the ambitious project. Muirhead, who admits he cannot code or solder and is permanently synced to his Mac, will need all the help he can get to answer some of his most pressing open source related questions: "Can I 3D print jeans, can robots cook me breakfast?"

The enthusiasm he has for spreading the word and educating the public on how to translate the philosophy to everyday life looks as though it will fuel him for the full year, however.

"I'll be testing just how far the open source idea can go in real life," he says with palpable excitement on his promotional video, while fixing a penguin sticker over his MacBook's Apple symbol. "I'm excited about exploring the different sides of open source with humor, clarity, and critical thinking, as I untangle myself from a world of consumerism and go from an open source outsider to a total DIYer and Linux nerd."

Muirhead, who has so far raised $2,650 of the target $20,000 with 27 days to go, says he wants to engross himself in the crowd sourcing philosophy and track down alternatives to daily, unconstructive consumerism.

Along the way, he hopes to highlight issues surrounding the time-wasting, unproductive, and anti-innovation copyright issues facing technology today.

He will be forgoing Apple's Final Cut Pro software for Lightworks or Novacut to edit the weekly films that will appear on his blog diary, resort to "regular writing" at times, and turn to local hacker community c-base to help him develop a camera of sufficient quality using open source technology. While documenting his project is a great way of getting the word out, it also works to show how open source itself is an ideal format for storytelling—a constant flow of information being updated, rather than perfected over a year spent generating a feature-length film, is a great way to share ideas and experiences as they happen.

Picturing an entire life's worth of "stuff," it almost seems an impossibility that Muirhead can succeed in a total open source life. In his promotional video he uses clothing as an example: he is either going to have to find companies selling open source clothing, or make his own from open source patterns—cut to Muirhead being filmed following a Berlin hipster down the street in toga and flip flops.

"It'll be fun," says the quite possibly masochistic Muirhead. "But they'll be plenty of challenges—I must say I'm not looking forward to open source toilet paper."

Working with the Berliner "producers, hackers, makers, designers, dreamers, engineers, scientists, and artists" who will hopefully answer his call, he will create his own alternative products by engaging in collaborative community projects. The final plans, codes, or diagrams will be published on his blog so that the public can replicate or amend his creations. They will eventually be able to amend the designs live on his site. He will also be turning to open source education to teach himself a thing or two about coding and soldering.

As well as bringing together the Berliner community—which already has the MakerLab promoting innovation, local urban farms sharing in the philosophy, and its very own open source political Pirate Party—to aid him in the challenge, generate enthusiasm for open sourcing, and inspire new ideas, the collaborations will also help Muirhead avoid a year's worth of diary videos depicting him "alone on my coach."

Along the way the public will be able to request help for their own open source projects, and those who contribute to the crowdfunding will get "a tip of the hat, a sly wink, a kiss blown on the wind, a humble bow, and a thank you on the website"—and perhaps some original illustrations. The money they donate will go toward materials for new creations and the production costs of documenting the whole thing.

As much fun as it will be to watch Muirhead tackle the weekly challenge of tracking down open source toilet paper, it will also be exciting to follow the progress of a project that stands to bring together the already open Berliner community in new and interesting feats of design, technology, and innovation.

How does one open-source toilet paper? I don't understand the thought behind this experiment. Software can obviously be closed source (no source code released) as well as more complicated hardware (no schematics released), but toilet paper? The process for making toilet paper is well-known, so why not just buy the commercial stuff? It's not like it's closed source...

I can understand the DIY aspect he's trying to add in, but one of the points of the open source movement (correct me if I'm wrong) is not having to DIY all the time; if you don't like your OS, instead of having to write a new one from scratch because you don't have the source code, you can use what the FOSS community has put out there and build on that.

How does one open-source toilet paper? I don't understand the thought behind this experiment.

At least we're two there.

Also if we go down deep enough a whole lot of things aren't open source. To start with: The vast majority of components in his mac aren't so I hope he'll use.. umn ok, he probably will want to start with a FPGA and Verilog/VHDL before starting this project.

We have quite a few free newspapers which are either posted through the letterbox or can be picked up from the street: Are they considered as open source, or just free?Just thinking about the toilet paper thing, you see.

How does one open-source toilet paper? I don't understand the thought behind this experiment.

At least we're two there.

Also if we go down deep enough a whole lot of things aren't open source. To start with: The vast majority of components in his mac aren't so I hope he'll use.. umn ok, he probably will want to start with a FPGA and Verilog/VHDL before starting this project.

I was thinking the same thing about the Mac. He can't just slap a Linux sticker over the Apple logo and call that open source. Tossing out the MacBook would be like the first thing on my list for this kind of experiment.

I was thinking the same thing about the Mac. He can't just slap a Linux sticker over the Apple logo and call that open source. Tossing out the MacBook would be like the first thing on my list for this kind of experiment.

Forgiving the fact that you can't really easily Open Source an entire PC, the first step would definitely be to pick a more open PC than a Mac. Apple is one of the most restrictive device makers out there. Build your own PC from parts and run Linux, or if you need to be mobile, get a Chromebook. Using your Mac says you're not actually that committed to the idea because you're still wedded to "your" consumer weaknesses, even when they're the place open source is focused.

He did get one thing right...when he said "there's a problem...I'm a mac user" I agree that sounds like a problem. This seems like a cheesy ploy to try and get a career started. If he's a "filmmaker" what has he worked on? Maybe I just don't agree with how he is using the term open source. He should have replaced it in most uses with DIY...like I can't buy premade jeans...i have to learn to do it myself. However we now have documentation on how the Mac community feels about linux users and that they are nerds.

All in all your pitch sucks, your approach sucks, and you just furthered all stereotypes I have for Mac users.

However I hope he is able to give something back to his open community because that is pretty awesome.

This is a very, very stupid comment. That Apple's mobile and tablet devices are restricted does not make their computers so; it's not at all difficult to run your OS of choice on their hardware.

(Posted from my triple-booting Macbook Pro.)

Ok, where are the device specifications for the hardware used in a Mac? It's impossible to get a complete OSS PC, but if you try you can get at least get a percentage higher than 0% I'd think. Also you can finally use your own bootloader with macs? If not even the software isn't completely OSS, something that is considerably easier to achieve.

Anyhow if you really want to go completely OSS, you'll have to go with old MIPS as there's somewhat a chance of getting at least a linux kernel and some software to compile for it. So I assume we should limit ourselves to only talking about OSS software - but then I've no idea how toilet paper and other electronics come into play.

This is a very, very stupid comment. That Apple's mobile and tablet devices are restricted does not make their computers so; it's not at all difficult to run your OS of choice on their hardware.

(Posted from my triple-booting Macbook Pro.)

Your forgetting hardware....so triple boot your stupid comment. Mac users are very limited in what physical upgrades they can do when compared to building a PC for ones self. God forbid someone upgrade their processor because they have extra money now that they didn't have when they built the system.

My initial thought is... This is just stupid... But sincerely I do hope he's successful in raising awareness of what is and isn't open source as well as what is and isn't possible to open source....

Open source "stuff" is transparent and unrestricted... Its not necessarily free... nor community built... Nor a hundred other things too often assumed to be part of it.

In that its worth noting that all toilet paper probably already qualifies...Nobody is refusing to tell you what your toilet paper is actually made of or claiming that you can't make your own toilet paper. It's pretty freaking obvious what is made of and how it's made so if you want to pulp a bunch of tree and make paper to wipe yourself you can. Further, nobody is telling consumers of toliet paper that they can't use their toilet paper however they want, you can blow your nose with it or take the cardboard tubes and build a miniature model of castle neuschwanstein if you choose.

I was thinking the same thing about the Mac. He can't just slap a Linux sticker over the Apple logo and call that open source. Tossing out the MacBook would be like the first thing on my list for this kind of experiment.

Forgiving the fact that you can't really easily Open Source an entire PC, the first step would definitely be to pick a more open PC than a Mac. Apple is one of the most restrictive device makers out there. Build your own PC from parts and run Linux, or if you need to be mobile, get a Chromebook. Using your Mac says you're not actually that committed to the idea because you're still wedded to "your" consumer weaknesses, even when they're the place open source is focused.

Or he can really go overboard and start building upon a Raspberry Pi instead of being a 'slave' to the big bad ol' conglomerates. At least he'll easily be able to replace his beer and cola (with "Free Beer"/OSBP and "OpenCola" respectively). By the way,any bets on how long he'll last before he discovered that open-source living is a lot less effective in practice than in theory?

Also, sorry y'all,but I can't stop myself from responding on this part of the article:

Quote:

Muirhead, who admits he cannot code or solder and is permanently synced to his Mac, will need all the help he can get to answer some of his most pressing open source related questions: "Can I 3D print jeans, can robots cook me breakfast?"

... Well, I don't own a Delorean and don't exactly have a firm grasp on all the intricacies of flux capacitors, but I WANNA TRAVEL BACK TO THE FUTURE,DAMMIT!

Good luck doing Film or Pro Audio with open source software... I don't think any of the programs, and I have tried them all, come close to a $50 Magix Music Maker program you can get at Best Buy. Having both closed and open source software I think has created the optimum environment for the advancement of software so I get really confused as to why people would limit themselves to one type.

Or he can really go overboard and start building upon a Raspberry Pi instead of being a 'slave' to the big bad ol' conglomerates. At least he'll easily be able to replace his beer and cola (with "Free Beer"/OSBP and "OpenCola" respectively). By the way,any bets on how long he'll last before he discovered that open-source living is a lot less effective in practice than in theory?

Not even then, because the used GPU has a binary blob firmware image and the device uses closed source drivers.

Or he can really go overboard and start building upon a Raspberry Pi instead of being a 'slave' to the big bad ol' conglomerates. At least he'll easily be able to replace his beer and cola (with "Free Beer"/OSBP and "OpenCola" respectively). By the way,any bets on how long he'll last before he discovered that open-source living is a lot less effective in practice than in theory?

Not even then, because the used GPU has a binary blob firmware image and the device uses closed source drivers.

Fair point Though it's still closer to open-source than a Mac(or the average PC). Edit:there's always the NanoNote (*snicker*)

he shouldn't have mentioned using open source toilet paper, after all, think of all the non-open source items he uses every-day...

is he not going to watch any movies, tv shows, or sports, cause those all use non-open source cameras to film them, software to post-process, etc. Not to mention a lack of open-source HDTVs or theaters to watch them on.

how about books? if its not open source font, he's not going to read them right? what if the book was typed in Microsoft Word instead of OpenOffice? speaking of font's his blog better use an open-source font.

how's he going to commute? he can't use public transportation or personal vehicle because those aren't open-source. gotta build himself a bike then.

not to mention where he lives? is he going to find an open-source flat?

Hi, this is Sam - I see you've all got plenty of questions and criticism. Maybe have a look at my FAQ for some answers about my computer hardware, copyleft, how I'll approach projects, etc: http://yearofopensource.net/2012/07/14/faqs/

open source filmmaker... hmmm making films could present an interesting problem.

Hell,filming it in anything digital might be a challenge - from storage(offhand I can't think of a single storage format that's not sporting a non-free license) to format(yes,there are FOSS ones,but getting to them without straying into non-opensource territory is problematic) to... yeah.. Still,it's better to have dreamers/cautionary tales to add some spice to our lives )))

Ah, the first steps of the GNU/Linux neophyte. I'm sure many can still remember them, before the pure heart is corrupted by visions of binary blobs, a vulgar, irate Linus, and the image of the greatest champion for software freedom in our lifetime eating something mysterious from his foot.

Speaking of which, I sure hope he has rms in his address book; it will probably save him a few hundred hours worth of research.

Which will win out, his current enthusiasm or the frustration that a workload combination of self-reliance and sensory overload inevitably brings? I'll bank on the latter, but I could be wrong; people do some really crazy things once they start a blog.

I appreciate his quest but just filming in terms of photography equipment alone is difficult. The only open source camera is not really finished yet but I guess he should check out and use http://apertus.org/ Would make an interesting demo of what is possible so far film wise. What about lighting? Not sure but maybe there is such a thing already?

It is quite funny that at this point in history it is probably still very impractical to live a completely open source life. However, if history had have been different, it may not have been so.

Germany did not have much intellectual property law until much later than other nations yet it still developed rapidly and in places faster despite. So who knows what really is possible when we only have one version of history to compare with?

My own feeling is that open source applies well to something pretty generic as you can get a community going around it, so for something like a web server, it works. No one however is going to develop open source software for a car sun roof because it just wouldn't be interesting enough that many people would get it going, only a company making the sun roof would really care.

How does one open-source toilet paper? I don't understand the thought behind this experiment.

At least we're two there.

Also if we go down deep enough a whole lot of things aren't open source. To start with: The vast majority of components in his mac aren't so I hope he'll use.. umn ok, he probably will want to start with a FPGA and Verilog/VHDL before starting this project.

I was thinking the same thing about the Mac. He can't just slap a Linux sticker over the Apple logo and call that open source. Tossing out the MacBook would be like the first thing on my list for this kind of experiment.

Wow. All the hate condensed in a thread. The only thing missing is the Socialist label (that shouldn't take long).

He wants to know how far he can take it. So he ends up with VHS quality video ? That's a result, not an insult.

The Apple ecosystem is a captive market affair, hardware and software; if they could have restricted email in their Itune realm, they would have done so. For commercial reasons but with a cool makeup skin.

Several "buy local" experiments have been documented lately; I tag this attempt in the same category, dogmatic capitalists be damned.

At first I thought to myself, "oh cool...somebody a little older is going to give open source a try after living with a Mac all their life...I would actually be curious to see how that goes for him".

Then it became abundantly clear he doesn't understand what open source means. It doesn't mean DIY/socialism/everything is free. When you talk about going "open source" for things like toilet paper and transportation, the only conclusion I can come to is that he fundamentally doesn't understand the scope of what he's asking $20,000 to study. And I use the term "study" very loosely.

I agree with a previous commenter, this seems like an attempt to get his name out there and start his career. The video is actually pretty well put together from a production values standpoint. But if that were me, I would be ashamed to have my face all over something that screams "hey look I'm another 20-something who deserves money to live my alternative lifestyle in voyeuristic fashion and get paid to do it!".

He's making the rest of us 20-somethings look bad. And he doesn't know what he's talking about. And the worst part is, he's got some talent. He is just another stereotypical lazy 20-something that hasn't taken the time to understand what he's talking about, which is preventing him from composing a coherent proposal for his project.

He's failed at the start, with his Mac. Then you have issues like connectivity - how do you go open source on a wifi network where a couple of dozen companies own patents? On the internet, when to use a modem you'll be using some patented technology?

Don't pick up that phone, either.

Sorry, but this guy has no idea what "open source" might involve, or what sacrifices he may actually need to make. He'll need to dump the Mac and go grab a Strawberry Pi, just to start.

I'm gonna counter the flow of negativity here by saying, I hope he gets his funding and gives it a real try.

Of course he's gonna fail, if fail means that at the end of the year he has any closed source products anywhere in his life. But I think that's an overly literal and binary interpretation of what he's up to. To me it looks like he's saying that he wants to try to get as much of his life opensource as possible, and document successes, failures, and compromises in the process.

Even that's going to be interesting, because, gosh, he'll have to make an inventory of basically everything he uses or depends on. So how much detail does that involve? List all the parts in your wristwatch? What about the metallurgy processes used to create the materials? What about the paint on the walls? What about the wires and nails in the walls? When he orders his Raspberry Pi ... how about the truck that delivered it?

Whoosh! Gonna have to find boundaries somewhere. Which could actually be an interesting exercise all by itself.

I'm actually thinking of kicking in a few bucks. Not because I'm a an OSS evangelist (I am not), but because I think it is an interesting experiment from which surprising lessons may be learned.

This is a very, very stupid comment. That Apple's mobile and tablet devices are restricted does not make their computers so; it's not at all difficult to run your OS of choice on their hardware.

(Posted from my triple-booting Macbook Pro.)

It can be done, but ask red hat's matthew garrett how nice and standard the macbook air is:)As for the pc he should use, I've heard that Stallman has a completely open source laptop. Everything from the bios to the firmware to the drivers. I think even the hardware is open source. Funnily enough, I also heard it was nicked a few weeks back.

Wow, a lot of snarky attitude here from FOSS folks that you'd usually ascribe to snotty Mac users. Funny that.

He does address the "toilet paper" comment and other stuff in the FAQ he posted above.

As for not wanting to fund a 20-something's hippy lifestyle....well, maybe you're just jealous that you're not doing it? I hope he raises awareness of "open source" and in doing so improves our world. Any change would make $20,000 a really, really cheap investment. Fuck it, give him a buck just to pay for the enjoyment of watching him fail.

Wow, a lot of snarky attitude here from FOSS folks that you'd usually ascribe to snotty Mac users. Funny that.

He does address the "toilet paper" comment and other stuff in the FAQ he posted above.

No he does not. To be exact that's what he's saying:

Quote:

My mention of toilet paper was a throwaway comment meant to make people understand the extent of the issues I’ll be investigating, and that I won’t just be dealing with high-tech issues. The line has been included in a few headlines, and unfortunately far too much importance has been placed upon this particular point and derailed the conversation on some sites.

You really don't see why people would have a problem with someone doing such a project without even understanding what open source means? Another example if you think the toilet paper one was just a slip-up? Well easy: Lightworks open source? Nope, (could only find a german article, but I'm sure your favorite online translation tool will help) postponed since November 2011. No, having a gratis version to download, does not equate open source - if that was the case, Visual Studio would be as well.